November 30, 2009

Snapfish is an online photo service that allows you to store photos to share with others. All that's required to get started is to set up a free account, then prints can be ordered, photos can be downloaded from the site into your computer, and items can be made out of those photos (e.g. books, posters, and mugs). It's a great way to view family and friends' photo collections to be able to select and purchase the photos that you want. For one week, through December 2, Snapfish is offering 50% off photo books on their site. For each photo book purchased, Snapfish will donate $1.00 to a food bank in your home state. This promotion was featured on Rachel Ray's Thanksgiving on Main Street Show that aired November 25. You just need to enter the coupon code RRBOOK during the checkout payment step upon completion of your book. I created an 8x8-inch 20-page hardcover photo book of my grandkids. It's quite simple. First, you decide what photos and scans you want to use and upload them to Snapfish. Next, you choose a book format, size, and theme. Finally, you can either use the auto-fill option which automatically adds photos to your book or you can manually place each one where you choose. Once you become familar with the commands and what your options are, it is really a simple and quite amazing process as the album begins to take shape on your computer screen and you can flip each page to see your handiwork before purchasing your end-product. Here is a sampling of pages from my book. On some pages I told a story...

November 28, 2009

This "Dream Snow" pop-up advent calendar by the renowned children's book author and illustrator Eric Carle is way too fun to not get the word out. It is available from Chinaberry for $10.99. I already placed an order for shipments to my grandkids. According to the catalog and web site description, "Traditional advent calendars have 25 little doors or flaps to open, with something festive to see inside. This calendar goes even further. As you open it, an amazing scene pops up, complete with Santa, a Christmas tree, and 5 merry packages under the tree! Inside the doors are either ornaments to put on the pop-up tree or gifts to put inside the boxes, allowing children to play more of an interactive role than just peeking inside a flap each day." You'll need to get your order in pronto since December 1, the first day to begin opening the calendar's flaps, is Tuesday of next week.

November 27, 2009

My friend Sandy, who owns Country Roots Greenhouse on Highway 18 east of Brainerd towards Garrison, gave me a huge buttercup squash that she had grown in her garden. If you've eaten a number of winter squash in your lifetime, you know that all squash are not created equal. If, when slicing a buttercup squash into two halves to prepare for baking, you are greeted with an intensely dark orange color indicating peak ripeness... well, that's the ultimate assurance that it will not disappoint you. Sandy's gift was just such a squash. After eating half of it a couple days ago, I dug out a recipe that I had torn from a November 2009 issue of tasteforlife. The free publication is commonly found at health food stores near the checkout. My daughter Heather had picked up this particular issue near her home in New York so, when I was about to catch a flight back home after Dick's and my recent visit there, she kindly shared it with me for reading material on the plane. These gluten-free (if millet flour is used) vegan Oatmeal Harvest Cookies, that I made last night to pack into Dick's lunch for a day trip with some buddies whom with he shares old car interests, came from the tasteforlife publication. They are so very tender, a powerhouse of nutrition, and such a pretty autumn color for these final days of November!

½ cup whole wheat pastry flour, oat flour, or millet flour (I had all three kinds on hand, but I chose millet because I don’t use that flour often enough. Millet is a source of vitamin B2 which is also known as riboflavin. Also, the recipe already includes oatmeal, so I didn’t want to duplicate that ingredient by using oat flour.)

2 tbsp chopped nuts (I used walnuts, but raw sunnies would be very good.)

Preheat oven to 350°. Plump raisins by pouring a little boiling water over them in a small bowl. Let soak until plumped, about 15-30 minutes. Mix dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix mashed squash or sweet potato, applesauce, and oil. Add to dry ingredients. Stir in raisins, raisin plumping liquid, and nuts. Drop by heaping tablespoon onto lightly oiled cookie sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes. Note: Millet flour, which is gluten-free, can be found in most grocery stores in the health food section. Arrowhead Mills is a common brand.

November 26, 2009

In one of my textbooks Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health, for the Basic Herbology class that I am taking to earn my Holistic Nutrition Degree, the book’s author Rosemary Gladstar speaks of a mythical Greek goddess named Cosmeos who “gave to mortals the gifts of herbs, flowers, and other simple pleasures to nourish the body and soul. She personified radiant health that flowed from a core of harmony and balance.” (p. 113) On this Thanksgiving Day 2009, as we embark on the upcoming Christmas season and the busyness that it can entail, my goal is to seek out simple pleasures, maintain a sense of harmony and balance in the everyday, and nourish my body and soul so that I might embody radiant health that comes from within. These potassium-rich Banana Maple Walnut Muffins from Jane Kinderlehrer's Smart Muffins are a good start along with a soothing cup of Bigelow Organic Green Tea with Pomegranate and Acai.

Plump the raisins. In a small bowl, mix together the bran and yogurt. Set aside. In a mixing bowl, blend together the eggs, oil, maple syrup, mashed bananas, and lemon juice (or raisin liquid). Add the yogurt-bran mixture and the raisins. In another bowl, mix together the flour, wheat germ, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and orange rind. Preheat oven to 375°. Lightly oil 12 regular-size muffin cups or 6 jumbo-size. Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture and process briefly – only until no flour is visible. Don’t overmix. Stir in the walnuts and sunflower seeds. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Top each with a few chopped walnuts or sunflower seeds. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. The muffin tops will have a golden glow.

*To plump raisins, pour a little boiling water over them in a small bowl. Let soak until plumped, about a half hour. If you do this as the 1st step in your recipe, before you even begin to gather all of your recipe ingredients together, they’ll be ready by the time you need to add them to your mixture. If you run short on time and you need to reduce the plumping time, it’s not a problem. They’ll still be soft enough in the baked product.

November 25, 2009

Ever since my daughter Lisa moved to New Jersey, I have wanted to find the home where Martha Stewart spent her childhood. During Dick's and my recent trip there, Lisa kindly helped me accomplish this item on my "bucket list". It turned out that her home, according to MapQuest, is only 5.12 miles away from Lisa's home!

The home is located at 86 Elm Place in the town of Nutley, New Jersey.

To be sure I had the right house, an internet search provided the following information and a photo of the house confirming it. The only detail that had changed is that instead of Elm St., as the address was when Martha lived there, it is now Elm Place.

Martha's childhood home for sale

Asking price from current owners for three-bedroom

New Jersey house: $549,000.

June 7, 2004: 2:53 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The house where Martha Stewart grew up in Nutley, N.J., is for sale.

Stewart's last name was Kostyra when she lived in the house as a child. Her mother sold it to the current owners in 1987. The three-bedroom, 1,922-square-foot house, built in 1930, went on the block this week at an asking price of $549,000.

The domestic diva grew up in this modest but comfy house at 86 Elm Street in Nutley, NJ.

November 24, 2009

During a visit with our daughter Heather in New York over the past two weeks, Heather's husband Patrick suggested that we tour a nearby 80-acre farm 30 miles north of mid-town Manhattan. The nonprofit Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture is a four-season educational center that offers workshops, conferences, lectures, cooking classes, book discussions with noted authors, kids' summer day camps, etc. The farm's sustainable in-season farm-to-table operation includes pastured livestock and garden plots that provide year-round produce for the onsite cafe and restaurant, as well as their weekly farmers market.

Row covers and greenhouses are used to extend the farm's growing season.

I was intrigued by the plants growing so closely together in straight... very straight rows. The space-saving strategy is similar to the "square foot" gardening method except utilizes long rows instead of 12 x 12-inch blocks of space. It would be far too labor intensive for a person to plop one seed at a time into the ground on such a large scale as this farm. What device was used? A farm worker showed me the planting device. It has four or so side-by-side seed compartments attached to a wooden handle. It simultaneously digs tightly-spaced little furrows and drops seeds as you pull it behind you. The settings allow adjustment for different size seeds. I immediately pondered its application in my own small home-gardener plot. Upon one final inquiry, I learned that it was available at Johnny's Seed Company. It turns out that it isn't going to be that simple to locate it, however, since my search on Johnny's web site turned up empty. They do sell a seed planter, but it's different. Its usefulness warrants further persistence.

November 23, 2009

Dick and I have officially begun to settle in for the winter after our return flight home on Saturday night after spending two weeks with two of our daughters and their families... Heather in New York and Lisa in New Jersey. A few photos of our 5 grandkids...

November 01, 2009

Dick and I are on our way to Florida. When we travel, my favorite hotel chain is Hampton Inn because of their decor, comfort, and cleanliness. Breakfasts not so much... They don't stand out from any other hotel breakfasts. Here is a cozy corner of the lobby at the Hampton Inn in Madison, Wisconsin where we stayed last night.

This is where we ate breakfast this morning. The long narrow table was conducive to meeting and chatting with other guests... much like a bed and breakfast atmosphere.

Tonight we are settled into a Mount Vernon, Illinois Hampton Inn. This is the lobby... feels like home.

This is our room number. Coincidentally, the black and white stop sign is the same photo that identified our room last night at the Madison, Wisconsin Hampton Inn. You might not see that as strange, but there are approximately a dozen different photos that are used over and over throughout the hotel as room markers, so the chance of getting the same photo is rather slim. How appropriate, though... "Stop." That's just what we have done.